Major correction in the NYT, as its editors admit that one of the Abu Ghraib prisoners they publicized wasn’t telling the truth. Mediacrity sums up:

… the Times still doesn’t get it. This piece, like an earlier unsigned article on the subject, still doesn’t acknowledge the distinct possibility — if not probability — that nothing this man said was true and, again, obscuring his motive, which was clearly monetary. He is, after all, suing the government. […]
Unfortunately, this red flag sailed right past the Times reporter who wrote this story, house terrorism apologist Hassan Fattah, who was too gullible and too anxious to embarrass the U.S. military with his “scoop.”
Times management will probably try to shift all the blame for this humiliation to Fattah. The issue, however, is not one reporter’s sloppiness or gullibility, but rather a system that is all too eager to skew the military and publish anti-American swill without even elementary checking.

The AP abandons reporting for assertion in “Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches.” John Hinderacker writes:

The “straw man” is, of course, a time-honored rhetorical device that is sometimes used by all politicians. But Loven attacks only one: President Bush. Do you suppose we can look forward to a piece on the Democrats’ logical fallacies? No, neither do I. […]
Loven’s penultimate example of Bush’s “straw men” is inexplicable:Usually without targeting Democrats specifically, Bush has suggested they are big-spenders who want to raise taxes, because most oppose extending some of his earlier tax cuts…>Do you understand that? I don’t. If the tax cuts aren’t extended, taxes will be raised. Most Democrats, as Loven acknowledges, support this. So how is this a “straw man”? Loven doesn’t say.
The Associated Press is an odd organization, and it isn’t clear to me who (if anyone) runs it. But there must be someone at the AP who wants the organization to be taken seriously as a news source. If that’s true, sacking Jennifer Loven would be a good first step.

Finally, I found this oddity in the New York Post over the weekend:

CHOCOLATE-smeared performance artist Karen Finley isn’t so sweet on liberal political weekly The Nation these days.
Finley – the art world provocateur whose Tawana Brawley-inspired chocolate-smear piece, “We Keep Our Victims Ready,” was shot down by the National Endowment for the Arts back in 1990 – claims The Nation is too squeamish to interview her about her new book, “George & Martha.” […]
“In the book . . . [Bush] gloats about invading Iraq, and invading Martha, and also reveals himself as an infantile, narcissistic personality who at one point imagines that Osama bin Laden is hiding in his [bleep]hole. Could this point really be what’s offensive about ‘George & Martha’? […]
But a Nation spokesman pooh-poohed the controversy, explaining that while the free-lancer who was assigned the piece backed out, the Nation is still willing to post an excerpt of Finley’s book on its Web site.
“No one on the staff of The Nation is afraid of sex,” he added. “In fact, we quite enjoy it as frequently as possible.”

Apparently no one on the staff of The Nation is afraid of bad taste, either.